


and so troy fell

by 777335



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Aged-Up Otabek Altin, Aged-Up Yuri Plisetsky, Future Fic, M/M, friend crushes, happy fic, i just love their sweet precious innocent little faces, off season fic, this is just pure sweetness, tsoa mashup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 07:30:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10552464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/777335/pseuds/777335
Summary: Yuri skates like Achilles must have fought.This is what Otabek thinks, while he watches Yuri move, like the start of a very old story you thought you knew by heart only to discover something new. Yuri's skates slice into the upper layer of ice when he lands in the same way that Achilles sword and spear must have sliced into his opponents’ flesh. Like going home.They called Yuri the Russian fairy, but when Otabek watches him he has never seen lush green trees or heard bubbling brooks or tasted fresh dirt on the air; he hears thunder, tastes iron, sees ripples of bronze. Otabek watches as Yuri slashes across the center of the ice, bold and powerful and disarming and so gentle all at once. Yuri skates like dreaming, his head is thrown back the way it is when he crashes on the couch, but his arms are not careless about his head.  His mouth is open in a pant.Otabek bites his tongue to stop himself from something, he doesn’t know what. Yuri spins dizzyingly fast.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is set slightly in the future, three off-seasons or so. i have just decided that yuri goes to train with otabek in almaty, as one does, for at least part of the off-season. i mean, i would so there you go. really this fic is just made of saccharine because they are precious.

Yuri skates like Achilles must have fought.

This is what Otabek thinks, while he watches Yuri move, like the start of a very old story you thought you knew by heart only to discover something new. Yuri's skates slice into the upper layer of ice when he lands in the same way that Achilles sword and spear must have sliced into his opponents’ flesh. Like going home.   

They called Yuri the Russian fairy, but when Otabek watches him he has never seen lush green trees or heard bubbling brooks or tasted fresh dirt on the air; he hears thunder, tastes iron, sees ripples of bronze. Otabek watches as Yuri slashes across the center of the ice, bold and powerful and disarming and so gentle all at once.  Yuri skates like dreaming, his head is thrown back the way it is when he crashes on the couch, but his arms are not careless about his head.  His mouth is open in a pant. 

Otabek bites his tongue to stop himself from something, he doesn’t know what. Yuri spins dizzyingly fast.

 

_(This is the third year running that Yuri is training with him in Almaty for a bit, though sometimes they venture to Hasetsu, to St. Petersburg; sometimes they are separate and it aches in a different way than it does during the season. Otabek prepares for it the same way he prepares for competitions- like he is preparing for war.  They do not get to see each other enough during the season, and then they see each excessively, all the times they couldn’t be together crunched into one small period. It makes Otabek lightheaded._

_This summer he has began to think it makes Yuri lightheaded as well.)_

_  
_

Yuri skates like the softest flick of his hand could cut through steel, like he doesn’t understand the meaning of the word fear, even though Otabek knows he does. He looks unreal. He launches into the air and time goes much too slow, then much too fast. He lands with a hitch; touches down with his left hand to balance himself, his right floats down like an afterthought. It is a decent recovery.  Yuri will be disappointed with himself that it was not better.

Yuri's movements are a command that Otabek can't ignore--  _look and see what I can do._ He would look even if it weren’t demanded; he would drink Yuri clean off the ice.  When Yuri skates the world is a wasteland and Yuri is the only water; Otabek watches him like he is parched.

 

_(Before bed, Yuri has taken to getting them water with fresh meyer lemons, squeezing them with an intense look in his eyes, licking the juice off of his fingers in an offhand manner that makes Otabek swallow funny, think he should look away.  If it was intentional, it wouldn’t be attractive, but Yuri does it without thinking, pushing his hair out of his eyes with the back of one licked hand, fingers pink and mouth wet._

_Otabek never refuses the glass that is pressed into his hands and he sips and tells Yuri it’s good. Yuri glares at him with questioning eyes before collapsing in a huff beside him, leaning on Otabek’s shoulder, than his knee, wrapping his arms around Otabek’s stomach without saying a word._

_Otabek connects Yuri with a feeling of needing to drink something and the tart bite of summer lemons now, a strange yearning that gets worse every time Yuri touches him. Otabek told himself he wouldn’t do this, has been telling himself that for so long he can’t keep track anymore. He told himself he wouldn’t do this, but by the time he told himself that he was already hopelessly in love._

_After a bit, Yuri will sit up and fish his phone out of his pocket, drink his water in huge gulps and demand a variety of things from Otabek- comb my hair, rub my back, help me stretch, tell me a story, finish your water._ _)_

 

When Otabek looks at Yuri he does not feel like he is filling up; it is the opposite. Like he has swallowed a large chunk of ice and is being hollowed out so something better can come in.  It’s an unrivaled feeling, and one of the only ones that Otabek wants to feel. 

The piece is almost over. Yuri turns into a simple inside spread eagle. Some of his hair has escaped his braid and it flutters in front of his eyes, which close for a half second.

 

_(Two days ago Otabek had woken from a nap he hadn’t meant to be falling into by Yuri shrieking like a hawk. Otabek had started, but had not been able to sit up before Yuri had launched himself on top of Otabek, clasping Otabek's face in his hands, pressing their foreheads for just the briefest of seconds, whispering ‘go to bed, idiot’ into Otabek’s mouth before disappearing, leaving behind an impish grin and Otabek's entire body feeling cold.)_

 

The piece ends. Yuri’s arms freeze in the air, the slightest tremor, and then drop. He leans on his knees and draws a shaky breath in that Otabek can hear from halfway across the rink. The sound of Yuri’s breathing, loud and harsh in the still air, makes Otabek’s head spin. 

“Well?” Yuri demands, impatient, turning. His voice is like freshly melted spring water and Otabek tumbles in the sound of it.  It’s harder every day, every time Yuri looks at him, to pretend he’s not drowning. “Otabek?” Yuri always says his name like an incantation, says each syllable, _O-ta-bek_ , like’s he’s savoring it. Otabek feels an ache in the pit of his stomach, like hunger.

 

_(The first morning in Almaty this summer, Yuri had said Otabek’s name right out of bed, walking into the kitchen and into the corner of Otabek’s vision, his voice scratchy with sleep and his hair a mess, the color of lemons salted for lemonade._

_It had been indecent, the syllables dripping like marmalade, so sweet and heavy in the summer air that Otabek could almost taste them._

_He had pretended not to hear. 'Say it again' his heart had betrayed him, and, as though Yuri could hear the silent plea, he had said Otabek's name again, and again, and then again, dragging out the syllables. O-ta-bek._

_When Otabek finally turned, Yuri’s eyes had gleamed like peridot set in gold and Otabek’s heart had dropped all the way through the floor. He had fallen a long time ago, this he knew, but it was in that moment he knew it was irrevocable.)_

 

“It’s good,” He manages, stretching his hands from where they are clenching to the boards, letting his shoulders down, scratching the blades of his skates on the ice to distract himself from grabbing Yuri and kissing him and then possibly losing him forever.

“It's good.” Yuri repeats in a tone so flat it’s painful, and then he is skating across the rink too fast, purposefully spraying a thin layer of ice up over Otabek’s skates when he stops, abruptly, breathless. “Try again.”

Otabek laughs. He can’t help it; he feels dizzy. “It’s really good. I can’t believe it’s this good already.”  Yuri’s love for him is of a different kind and Otabek is glad for it and happy with it. This is what he has patiently told himself day after week after month after year, and it’s true, although sometimes it aches like a rotten tooth. “It’s going to be brilliant, Yura.” 

Yuri grins, ferocious. He could eat the entire world the way other people eat ripe cherries, Otabek thinks.  The world would burst on his tongue. Yuri flattens himself against Otabek, peering into his eyes. He no longer has to look up to do this. Otabek tells his heart to be to a slower song, but he feels it beat faster and faster the longer Yuri looks at him. Yuri grabs him by the elbows.

Otabek wants to tell Yuri just _how_ _good_ it was, how perfect it was, how the pit of Otabek's stomach feels. But the words sit heavy and fearful on the back of Otabek’s tongue and he cannot press them out into the cold air of the rink.

 

_(This morning he had braided Yuri’s hair, while Yuri drank coffee and complained that it was too hot, always too hot here, that the air was drowning him. When he complained his eyes flecked darker green, he tilted his head back to explain more to Otabek just why it was too hot and Otabek had said without thinking, tugging  on the braid that was now folded on itself and ruined_ _—Yura—, dragging the last syllable out the way Yuri did with his name, but how Otabek rarely did to Yuri's.  It wasn't that he hadn't called him Yura before, but he did it with the calm affection of friendship.  He knew this hadn't sounded like friendship; he had said Yuri's name all too fast at first, on one rushing exhale, and then dragging, like a prayer.  Yuri had almost shuddered, flushing a color up and over his collarbones that had fascinated Otabek._

_He had woven his fingers through the braid and resisted the urge to tug again —stop moving your head, Yura— and he had let the name linger on his tongue once more, like the taste of raspberry jam._

_Yuri had stared up at him, as though waiting, and Otabek had eventually tilted Yuri’s head back down to work on the braid, trying to ignore the shaking of his hands, trying to ignore the way Yuri’s shoulders had slumped, as though he was disappointed.)_

 

“Show me yours.” Yuri says, even though he’s seen it a million times and will see it a million more. As he says it, he pulls away from Otabek and turns on his toe pick, using the motion to pull Otabek off the boards and spin him ever so slightly out onto the ice. His hands drop from Otabek’s arms. This is a challenge - _don't come back to me until your hands are stained in Hector’s blood._

Otabek smiles. He loves a challenge.  Challenges are a thing he is good at.

He skates as near to flawlessly as he has yet this summer. Yuri looks like he’s going to burst when Otabek is done.

“Better than me.” Yuri says with a look that is proud and irritated and admiring and desperate all at the same time. His eyes are flashing the same color they flash when Otabek gets close to him late at night, or presses into his shoulders just right after one too many falls during practice, and the look is cutting into Otabek like blades.

Otabek doesn’t know if that’s true. He has confidence in his program, in the way he will skate it, but it’s still early on. He does not think it looks better than Yuri’s, not yet at least.  It wouldn't win if the final was today. Yuri’s is indescribable.

Yuri is indescribable.

He did not mean to say that out loud; but he also did not mean to get this close to Yuri when he said it.  Yuri's whispering _indescribable_  over and overwith his eyes lit up like gems.  Telling Otabek to say it again. It's captivating how he looks.  Otabek says it again, because Yuri told him to, and then it's like a dam breaks and Otabek tells Yuri that he's _fascinating_ and  _unbelievable_ and that he can't take his eyes off him and so many other things that he didn't realize he had found the words for.  Yuri's hair is tickling Otabek’s forehead, and Yuri’s biting his own lower lip and it’s flushed red and his collarbones are the same color as this morning, and Otabek suddenly finds that he does not have any words left.  

“Yura.” Otabek manages to mumble, his entire body feels so hot, everything is flushed, the ice is melting underneath them, they are going to drown.

“Fucking kiss me already, asshole.” Yuri says, with the exact opposite of venom in the words, and with a slight edge of nervousness that Otabek now knows how to detect, after so many years, a gentle way the ends of the words twist.  "Jesus."  Otabek reaches for Yuri’s hand because he doesn’t even have to look to feel the way it slides into his like it belongs there. 

Otabek kisses Yuri. It feels like when his skates touch the ice the first time he lands a jump perfectly. It tastes like lemons and when he gets to see Yuri after months apart and the way Yuri laughs when they’re alone, loud and high and clear like church bells ringing, like an entire scale on the piano.

Yuri hums into his mouth when they break apart and then whispers Otabek’s name.

Their lips brush with each syllable.

Otabek’s entire body sings. 


End file.
